Tony Burton will be online at the discussion forum for another Civic Voice Live for an hour at 1pm on Thursday 19 May. Join this discussion to talk about localism, Civic Day or anything else on your mind. .

Question from Newent Civic Society
On behalf of our committee, can I submit a request that the Heritage Open Days period is extended. In the early days, there was a heritage fortnight; this would suit Newent better as we have our now traditional Onion Fayre street fair on the second Saturday of September.

1 - why are you doing Heritage Open Days again - seems very much like back to the old days of the civic trust
2 - are you were you wanted to be after year one with groups joining? can you still make it sustainable, My own society will only join when we know you can be a success and we will not lose our money.

I have to go out so hopefully you can answer this when you get an opportunity.

What is the process you follow for deciding on campaigns? I accept that people are voted onto the Board as such decide the way forward, but, is their an opportunity whereby civic societies can maybe vote on campaigns and policies? At the moment I don’t see much of this happening.
I don’t want to sound critical as the work Civic Voice is doing is definetly the right way forward and I want this to be viewed as constructive.

As someone who has been involved in Heritage Open Days for many years, and someone who was extremely upset at the collapse of the Civic Trust, i am delighted to see that Civic Voice will be taking over it. Can you clarify what the relationship will be with you and The National Trust - I think you have to hold your own in discussions and don’t let them “take over”. Well done.

First on Heritage Open Days - far from being a blast from the past this has a rosy future and is much loved by civic societies across the country. Civic societies are the main contributor nationally and we are keen to play our part in ensuring it goes from strength to stregth - opening up people’s eyes to the importance of the heritage on their doorstep.

Civic Day is very different - this is for civic societies and like minded groups promoting civic pride and encouraging more people to get involved. It isn’t just about heritage and nor is it about opening up places free of charge. We can already see there is a huge appetite for getting involved in a national day with over 150 groups already involved and the number growing daily.

As for Civic Voice - we’re delighted that so many of you have supported us and there has been a ringing endorsement for what we are doing from the analysis of the results of the civic survey which we have undertaken so far (and lots of suggestions for how we can improve). Over 20 new groups have already joined this year and the number continues to grow. To anyone who is still waiting and wondering all we can say is that we all depend on every civic society playing its part - without your support every civic society is weaker. And the value of the free memberships and day passes for the National Trust and English Heritage on their own are worth much more than the cost of joining up.

I am pleased to see that Civic Voice has linked with others to strengthen the above. Many civic societies are already involved in these events. This is an about face given the anti reaction I got from the “leader” at the recent Reading workshop when I suggested this formula rather than the separate Civic Voice day. Civic Voice needs to concentrate on what is best with other responsible bodies rather than trying to do too many bits and pieces at once, often on its own and taking up valuable local voluntary time.

Thanks to Sarah for her question on campaigns - it is something we are working on as we speak. We are really keen that civic societies decide on some of the main campaigns being run by the civic movement and are looking for new and better ways for everyone to get involved. There are lots of ideas and we want to gather more and then invite your views on the ones that matter. We may even have a Dragons Den at our AGM or something similar. What do you think would work best?

We want to gather as many suggestions as possible so if there is something important you think we should all be campaiging on, which will be relevant to most civic societies and which isn’t too hard to do so every group feels it can get involved then let us know.

On the Heritage Open Days partnership with the National Trust and The Heritage Alliance - we are still finalising the details and we have been work really closely together over the last few months to get us to this point. There is no question of a National Trust take over - Heritage Open Days depends on thousands of volunteers from hundreds of different organisations around the country and everything we do will be geared towards supporting them and encouraging others to get involved. Civic Voice’s main focus will be on finding a strong future for Heritage Open Days once the funding from English Heritage ceases in about 3 years; and in supporting more civic societies to participate.

Kaye asks about Civic Day - it is only 36 days and 11 hours and 40 minutes away (according to the countdown clock on our website) but it isn’t too late to get involved. It is really easy to participate - just drop Ian Harvey a line if you are interested at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and you will find lots to read on our website here http://www.civicvoice.org.uk/campaigns/civic-day. We have put out a lot of bulletins by email so let Ian know if you want to see these and to get our bulletins on this and other things in future.

We are just about to send out some draft press releases for particpating groups to use locally to raise the profile. You have also been asking for templates for posters and certificates and so we areproviding some of these as well. There will be an advance notice national press release going out next Wednesday. We have also produced a map showing all the events so far which you can zoom in on or search by postcode.

What is Civic Voice’s viewpoint on “Business will want to lead planning in some areas and simplify the planning regime” surely this is a contradiction with the whole idea of the localism bill?
I do think communities should involve businesses, but it should not be business that sets the priority,

I would also like to know what Civic Voice is trying to to change some of the localism bill - I see that you want to set up an APPG but I am guessing this will not be reeady in time. You can’t sit around and wait for this to happen - you must act now. It will help me persuade my group to join if we know you are fighting our corner.

Aireborough is raising some tricky issues about planning appeals - it is always difficult when an INspector overturns strong local opinion. Around one third of appeals are won by developers. The main safeguard is to have a Local Plan (or Local Development Framework) which has the policies with which you agree - and that includes being able to demonstrate the necessary land bank for housing is available (including allowances for conversions and windfall sites as well as brownfield sites that should help minimise greenfield development). Costs awards should very much be the exception so it is worrying to hear they are being used so frequently. You will shortly be able to strengthen Local Plans by taking advantage of the neighbourhood planning arrangements being introduced by the Localism Bill. This is more likely to be succesful than trying to change the Inspectorate. The other key opportunity will be to ensure the new National Planning Policy Frameowrk (which will relace the dozens of Planning Policy Statements next year) has what we want in it. What would you like it to say?

Lots of questions on the Localism Bill - which is a huge focus of our efforts at the moment.

We are working very hard on the Bill and I spoke to the Minister Greg Clark about it only this morning. We are the only community voice on the Government’s Planning Sounding Board and our lobbying has seen changes to the Bill in the last few days which ensure conservation areas & listed buildings can’t be ignored by neighbourhood planning and also allow neighbourhood plans to cross local authority boundaries so they fit what communities want for their neighbourhood rather than administrative convenience.

We have some serious concerns about the growing business focus of the Localism Bill - it is really important that businesses are involved and we need to do much more to fight off clone town High Streets but the Bill is going to far we believe in putting business in the lead in some areas

Do have a look at our detailed briefing for MPs on the Bill and also the report of the meeting we convened for 10 civic societies with Greg Clark, the recording of my intereview with Greg Clark on the Bill and civic societies and also Greg’s responses to 25 questions raised by civic societies during our recent Spring Network events - the Planning Minister - on our website here http://www.civicvoice.org.uk/campaigns/planning-for-people/

On consultation arranegments for neighbourhood planning - there is unlikely to be any detail on this although many will doubtless produce guidance and good practice. The key test is that any plan has to win a majority vote in a public referendum.